


Detachments

by Archangel_Beth



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Movie)
Genre: Headcanon, It's So Obvious, Luke you innocent, Sith Teacher-Student relationships are abusive, Snoke is terrible, it's textbook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 02:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13284984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel_Beth/pseuds/Archangel_Beth
Summary: I am sure that there are fifty zillion versions of this fic already up, but this was the one that was eating my brain. Sorry.Spoilers for The Last Jedi. Big huge spoilers for an absolutely awesome reveal sequence.Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, teacher, and uncle, walks down to where his strongest student is becoming everything Luke has ever feared -- and where his desperate need for his father once served him, once saved him... His duties to a nephew are failing them both.





	Detachments

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sith_shenanigans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sith_shenanigans/gifts).



Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, teacher, and uncle, walks down to where his strongest student is becoming everything Luke has ever feared -- and where his desperate need for his father once served him, once saved him... His duties to a nephew are failing them both.

_(His sister once said it, though he doesn't know: the more you tighten your grip, the more slips through your fingers. Like sand. Luke would have felt that analogy.)_

He raises a hand to knock on the little dwelling. Hesitates. Ben is dreaming; Luke can feel it through the wood and stone. Feel the roiling emotions. Frustration that turns to anger. To a kind of sadism that repels and attracts. Lust. Fury at things Luke doesn't understand being furious about.

He pushes the door open and tries to look deeper, to see if there's some way to lance this poison.

_(And an elder creature senses this brightness at his prize's mind. Senses the connection. And pours darkness through the link, wrapping around the complicated truth as if it were native to the young human's mind.)_

Luke feels Ben's mind... like feeling a pit. A singularity. Hatred. Sadism. Fury. It's as thick as mud, as slime, as the Darkness in that swampy hollow. And reflex ignites the saber in his hand.

Jedi ethics, native goodness, are what stop him -- but he doesn't have the sense to turn the saber _off_. Only to stay his hand, and stare in horror at what he nearly did.

His nephew's waking eyes rend his heart.

_(If not for the almost-immediate concussion that follows, Luke might have realized that what he sensed and that what he saw... had a contradiction. Could the darkness within Ben's mind have felt such pained betrayal?)_

He will not let himself realize that he might have been manipulated. It's only part of the failure.

* * *

And far away, Snoke will never actually **say** that age and treachery have bested youth and hope... (It's unwise to acknowledge such things aloud, or even too clearly in one's mind.) But he will be smug. His poor betrayed student cannot believe he would be taken back. For years, he will believe his uncle would happily kill him. Of course, this lesson must be taught and taught again: there is no going back. Kylo Ren must be driven to further and further depths, evils wrought by his own hand. Must cut himself off from all attachments -- save to his master.

Snoke may not be truly a Sith, but the Rule of Two has always served those who desired absolute control over an almost-equal. When your master is all that saves you from the universe, who will save you from your master?


End file.
